Wednesday, January 02, 2008
The US population is in terms of consumption many times that of China
Jared Diamond, author of “Collapse” and “Guns, Germs and Steel”, has an important editorial in the NYTimes. Core point: if India and China matched the consumption rate of the United States, it would be as if the world had 72 billion people living on it. And by no one's standard is that sustainable. He points out that it's not the number of people on Earth that matters but the number of people times their rate of consumption. In other words, in terms of the burden on the Earth, when we in the United States have a child, it's the equivalent of having 32 children in a place like Kenya where consumption is so low. LINK
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4 comments:
We consume 32 times as much stuff, per-person, on average, as Kenya.
Do we produce 32 times more stuff (per-person, on average) as Kenya?
Lets see... wikipedia "List of countries by GDP (PPP)", US is $43,223 and Kenya is $1,357.
Equals 31.85. Rounded up-- hey, what a conincidence, 32!
In thirty years, Kenya (if all goes well) will be producing and consuming 32 times as much stuff as they do now.
And the US will probably be producing and consuming 10 times as much stuff....
Interesting coincidence Gavin, that production AND consumption are both 32:1
But the point is that current Western consumption rates are unsustainable for the planet if every country matches that rate. It's unsustainable because there are finite natural resources. It's absolutely key that this country start getting more efficient, a perspective that hopefully the next Federal administration can use the bully pulpit to promote. So, no I don't think that "all will be well" as you suggest if Kenya is consuming 32 times as much stuff as they do now, and I think it will be disastrous if the US is consuming 10 times as much stuff as it does now.
Can you point me to some evidence that we're running out of natural resources? (other than oil-- I do agree that it will be painful to switch from oil to some other source of energy over the next few years)
Check out this link for a good rebuttal to the idea that we're doomed because we're going to run out of "stuff":
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5744
I'll try to respond in more detail at a later point, Gavin, but for now, let me make some rambling comments on a paragraph from the article you referenced.
"What about natural resources largely outside of the marketplace such as wetlands, endangered species, ocean fisheries and other environmental "commons"? The picture here is more mixed, but to the extent that there are problems surrounding resource overexploitation, they stem from exactly the kind of policies that the Worldwatch Institute has long advocated: government ownership and management of threatened flora and fauna. Ocean fisheries are in trouble, except in Iceland and a few other countries where fisherman have been given property rights in various schools of fish. Elephant herds are facing extinction, except in countries such as Zimbabwe where private villagers have been given some property rights in the elephant population. Tropical rainforests are disappearing, except in countries that have privatized forest reserves and resisted the temptation to subsidize development. Natural resource socialism and government mismanagement of the land -- not the advanced consumer societies of the West -- is the culprit."
What it suggests is that we have to change our policies around natural resource management. And it suggests an acceptance that natural resources are indeed being depleted. I don't understand the intricacies of commodity pricing but you have to only look at the rising prices of commodities all over the resource spectrum to start to wonder whether that's an indication of demand outstripping supply and how long we can keep up our appetite not only for oil but for steel, copper etc. As painful as it is for me to say, I have to admit full agreement with the Cato comment above about the dangers of natural resource management by large power. Of course, for Cato they're thinking only of government power--they should be thinking of any large power, whether government or corporate. But that would align them with left wing anarchists who wear funny clothes . . . and that opens up a whole other debate . . .
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